The art of trumping
by kimmiesjoy
Summary: "Loaded question," Kate mutters almost under her breath with a tentative sigh of her own, "but what exactly do you want me to play?"


Based on a conversation I had with Docnerd89, a conversation that saved my sanity on a 4 hour train ride with my disgruntled mother and the most pre-teen 12yr old boy you will ever meet. If this already exists somewhere :S I apologize!

* * *

"I'm bored." He whines, flopping down heavily on the couch next to her.

Lifting her feet from their curled comfort and tugging at them gracelessly, making her slip along the leather. Sliding over the cushions closer and closer until he finally forces her to look up from her book.

"Shocking!" She replies dryly, letting her eyes roll for his benefit - because she knows how he loves and hates it in equal measure - before, with slow and deliberate movements, she raises the book high in front of her face and blocks Castle from view.

His brow scrunches, his arms fold and Kate lets out a long sigh, the book - he scans the cover - not one of his, resting on her chest as she wiggles down lower.

He waits...

But she wiggles again, stays that way...getting comfy and ignoring him thoroughly. Unmoving save for the occasional turn of the page.

He lets his gaze slip past her, bobbing his feet, knee over knee, his crossed leg swinging lazily above the other. Drumming his fingers along her shin he wastes a few seconds...waiting, pouting, puffing and sighing.

All the while she pretends to read and tries not to laugh.

Castle knows he's acting like a petulant child and he's more than ok with that. He needs entertaining and if she agrees to come over then...

"Play with me..." He begs finally, when his third long drawn out sigh gets ignored.

Closing the book slowly, with exaggerated care, Kate takes her time about arranging it in her lap, angling it this way and that, her thumb skimming the cover until the tension is rolling off of him in anxious waves. She huffs and looks up, leveling Castle with an expectant glare.

It has little effect, his fingers skimming her shin again, trailing higher, tracing gentle shapes over her warm skin.

"Loaded question," Kate mutters almost under her breath with a tentative sigh of her own, "but what _exactly_ do you want me to play?"

Before he has a chance to answer her, or respond in anyway Kate is holding up a hand to silence him. She points to where her feet are nestled snuggly in his lap, her heels pressing just shy of his groin.

"Bear in mind, you probably don't want me kicking you right about now." To backup her point, Kate presses down softly with her foot, fighting a smile when he winces in advance, catching her leg.

A little more pressure and it will hurt like hell, but at the moment, the soft drag of her foot... Castle rolls his eyes, shifts a bit to escape her teasing, his fingers dancing again, "Poker?" He suggests trailing the length of her ankle.

"Ehh..." Kate shakes her head and lifts her eyes, waiting for barely a second before she beats him to the next sentence, "No strip poker either."

"Any card game?"

Kate shrugs with no enthusiasm.

"Lazer tag?"

"What part of_ lazy day not moving _ was hard to understand?" Kate questions tilting her head, fingers tensing over her book.

"The part about you...being...lazy!" Castle replies honestly, moving towards her so her legs lift and fall over his thighs.

Dragging his hand slowly to the hem of her shorts, he curls his fingers around her knee and drops his head back onto the cushions, thudding softly with the impact.

He allows himself to stare, a few seconds of getting lost in her, sprawled and content on his couch. Her hair is pulled back a little from her face, but escaping tendrils lay across her cheeks, and she snags them behind her ears when they annoy her enough to be thrust away from her face. He lets her catch him staring, enjoys her blinking back at him steadily, watching him watch her before he breaks the silence, "Eye-spy?"

Kate laughs, so suddenly and joyously, her hand falling over his in three sharp pats, that Castle's head snaps up and his mouth falls open in shock.

"What's so funny?" He demands once she's snorting her way to the end of her giggle.

"You always lose," Kate smiles, letting loose a short sharp Ha! Smacking his arm lightly, "And you always cheat."

Castle narrows his eyes, "You always guess too easily." He watches her suspiciously, as if waiting for her to confess some insider knowledge that gains her the advantage.

Every time? It's not right.

Kate shakes her head, reading his mind and genuinely rolling her eyes at his silliness, "That's because you pick the most obvious things. I mean ME..." She opens her eyes wide and points at herself, "You spied _me_ Castle."

"Well...yes." He agrees flopping back again, dejectedly, "It was you or..."

"Car..." Kate reminds him, "Which you also spied." Kate strokes softly at his arm with mock disapproval, her voice low and heated when she says, "For someone with such a famed imagination you _suck_ at eye-spy." She smiles, poking him in the arm she had only seconds before been lovingly caressing.

"Fine, no eye-spy." Castle thinks for a second, drumming his fingers before he lifts both hands and claps them together, eyes bright with glee and...something Kate is a little wary of.

"No."

"But I haven't even said..."

Kate doesn't speak, but she waits...

"Fine, I'll skip that idea. Hmmm, ninja assassins?"

Lifting her fingers Kate proceeds to count off her arguments as she makes each point, "A. No." She states forcefully, toeing his knee in warning when he opens his mouth to protest. "B. You made that up and C. I said _nothing_ that means I have to move."

"I did not make up Ninja assassins."

Kate flashes her eyes, a silent _as if_ burning between them.

"I didn't." Castle defends, throwing his arms wide and swiveling towards her, fighting the grin that wants to erupt at her look of disbelief. He scrunches his lips and shrugs, murmuring under his breath,"The ninjas did."

Kate puffs her lips out in annoyance, watching the way Castle smiles, pleased with himself, trailing unknowable patterns on her legs.

"Ok..."One last ditch attempt at involving her in his own amusement. "Roshambo?"

Kate gives him a knee weakening look of disapproval, watching as it rolls off him with ease before she makes a grumbly noise under her breath and reaches once more for her book.

"Oh, come on." Castle says dropping his hands down on her legs heavily, "What's wrong with..."

"I always win." Kate interrupts, not looking up.

"I think you mean we always draw."

"Pfft."

"We can change it, make it more of a challenge."

"I am not playing_ strip_ Roshambo."

Castle pouts, thwarted again, and reconsiders. "Ohhh I know, rock paper scissors..."

"If you say _Lizard, Spock_." Kate drops the book with a laugh, "I am going home." She emphasizes her point by extending a long finger towards his front door.

Looking up at her with untamed tenderness Castle lets out a shallow breath, awed, completely lost in her and a little goofy..."I love that you watch that show." He says softly.

And he loves it a lot judging by the way his hand starts to get bolder in it's exploration, roaming her knee, tingles and tickles over the soft skin on the underside of the bone, the skin that made her...

"Mmmm?" She asks, slinking down further into him and the couch.

"But I wasn't going to say lizard Spock..." Castle continues to smile, watching Kate's eyes drift shut, the way her lips part and her mouth falls open as she luxuriates in the simple touch.

"What...were you...mmmm going to say?"

Castle lets his hand move higher, palm flat as it slides under her shorts, humming and skating the soft flesh at the back of her thigh.

She allows him to get away with it for a few seconds, the gentle almost lazy opening and closing of his fingers against her leg, teasing and rousing, before she presses the heel of her foot threateningly against his groin.

"Rock, paper, scissors..." She makes a face, eyes edging towards rolling all over again, but he lifts his hand fast and points at himself "_Writer_." and then at her "_Detective_."

With barely a thought she smiles widely "Ok."

"Really?"

"Yes, so...rules?"

"Well..." Castle says, getting into the flow, his eyes dancing, fingers mimicking the happiness of his face. "Writer beats paper."

Kate nods, "Makes sense."

"But paper beats detective."

"What? Why?" She asks, sitting up and scooching closer. Intrigued and ready to contradict him, the spark and flare of their bantering battle forcing them ever closer together.

"Paper work for one..."

"Well if you did your share..."

"Warrants, legal forms, court documents, chain of evidence forms, M.E reports, requalification documents..." Castle looks up, wondering if he needs to go on.

He has a point.

"Ok, paper beats detective," Kate concedes, "But scissors beat writer.

Castle opens his mouth, considering, then he shuts it again and smiles at her, "Nice...because they..."

"Cut things out of your stories." Kate nods.

"Detective beats scissors." Castle grins with confidence.

Kate quirks a quizzical eyebrow.

"Murder weapon." He smiles smugly, sighing as if she should have guessed already.

Kate shakes her head, caressing his hand like he's insane "You know if I hit you with a rock it would have the same effect, right?"

Castle's eyes widen shocked and somewhat...scared at the haphazard way she just reeled off his untimely demise at her hand. Then he grins, impressed with her twisted deviant logic. "That is brilliantly...violent, but let's stick with scissors."

"Why?" Kate asks suspiciously, trapping his hand and using it to pull herself closer.

"Because then writer beats rock." Castle casually slides his arm over the back of the couch, reaching behind her, shoving Kate away when she raises herself up to see what he's doing.

"How does...?"

Castle holds his hand out in front of her, fist squeezing hard, before turning it mid air and opening his palm wide, revealing a pebble. A dull, grey, lifeless stone that rests in his hand. Running his thumb around the curved edge of the stone, he starts to speak low and reverently

"Oh little grey and unknown rock, from some distant land,  
how is it that you come to be sitting in my hand?  
Is it that you fell from space, and rent the air in flame?  
Or did you arrive a'shore on waves too hard to tame?  
Oh little grey forgotten thing, I know not from where you hail..."

"But I am so very glad that you are not a snail." Kate finishes, reaching forwards and yanking the rock from his hand, laughing as Castle scrunches his lips and crosses his arms.

"You could do the same thing with scissors surely," Kate questions, dropping the rock behind her on the table, "If it's all about imagery and bringing inanimate objects to life with words?"

"It's so much harder to rhyme scissors," he pouts, "and you just wanted to..."

Kate shuffles forwards, raising herself properly and falling into his lap with a smile. Using the couch for leverage, she drops both hands to the cushion behind his head and lowers herself until they are chest to chest, nose to nose.

"I just wanted to prove a point." She breathes slowly, letting each word slide from her lips and trickle into his mind, watching the tender way he listens and absorbs everything she says.

"And that would be?" Gripping tight to her waist, Castle opens his eyes on a slow and steady blink, gazing up at her expectantly.

"Detective trumps writer." Kate grins against his lips.

With a huff, a tilt and a semi mid air twirl she's on her back and Castle is stretched out above her, pinning her down.

Not that she cares.

Curling an arm around his neck Kate pulls him closer, squirming into a comfortable position before she lets out a heavy breath.

""You were saying?" Castle teases, triumphant and leaning into her when her nails catch at the nape of his neck.

"Mmm let's just get naked and trump each other." She hisses flashing her eyes at him dangerously, invitingly.

"I think that's the sexiest thing you have ever said to me Ka..."

She shakes her head, trapping her name in his mouth with a swirl of her tongue, kissing him for barely a second before she skims his jaw. Moving over rougher skin and stubble with a graze of her teeth until she gets to his ear.

Her tongue makes a slow rotation of the entrance, light flicks and curls that jolt through him like electricity until she opens her mouth and whispers three little words.

Sexy words, demanding, wanting words.

Words that blow his mind every time he hears them, leaving him with no reason to be bored as Kate rises up beneath him, pulling him down and meeting his lips with her own.


End file.
